The 15th Sligo Arts Festival starts today with a programme concentrating largely on world music and including internationally renowned bands from countries such as Zimbabwe, Jamaica and France.
Concerts, recitals, plays, readings and exhibitions will take place over 10 days in as many as 35 venues around the town. This year's festival has the addition of a "massive millennium family day out". There will also be a street pageant, an expanded children's programme, large outdoor concerts and a funfair.
The emphasis though is firmly on music events, with acts such as The Wailers, Salsa Celtica, Lo'Jo, Natalie McMaster, Dublin-based Kila and The Four Brothers, one of the most successful groups in their native Zimbabwe. Cuban band Sonora la Calle, Transglobal Underground and UK reggae band The Worries also feature.
Some of the bands, who have achieved considerable success on the international circuit, are visiting Ireland for the first time.
Another addition to the festival this year is the ethno project, an international folk music seminar where musicians from different countries teach each other their own traditional music, songs and dance over 10 days. This is the first year the ethno project has taken place in Ireland, and it is being run on both sides of the Border.
Forty participants from the North and the Republic will join with 30 others from countries as far apart as Sweden and Jordan.
As well as staging pub sessions, all 70 young musicians will join as Ethno (Ireland) '99 Orchestra for a final concert in the Southern Hotel next Friday. These musicians are aged between 15 and 25 and the project is funded by the EU's peace and reconciliation fund. Co-operation Ireland and IBEC-CBI's joint business council are also involved.
Other musical tastes are not completely forgotten. Bizet's Carmen will be staged at the Hawk's Well Theatre by Co-Opera in association with Opera Ireland on Sunday May 30th and the Abbey is bringing its production of Hugh Leonard's latest play, Love In The Title, to the same venue from Tuesday to Thursday.
George Seremba's Come Good Rain is at the Willow Room, the Adelaide, next Friday at 9 p.m. Written and performed by Seremba, it tells the story of his flight from human rights abuses in Uganda. It has been staged to wide acclaim around the world.
A night which should attract much local attention is a double bill by Pat McCabe, Sligo-based author of The Butcher Boy, and Perry Blake, a Sligo singer-songwriter who has enjoyed huge success in France.
Lovers of Spanish classical guitar can hear Agustin Maruri who will give two performances over the first weekend, and French cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras will play at the town's two cathedrals on June 5th and 6th. Freddie White will be playing a number of free pub sessions and author Joe O'Connor will give a reading at the Yeats Building.
In visual arts, there will be exhibitions at 11 locations by artists including Jane and Tony O'Malley, Catherine McWilliams and Irene Hegarty. Work from the Leitrim Sculpture Centre will be on display and a photographic exhibition examining the histories of 10 people who arrived in Ireland as refugees over the past 50 years, A Part of Ireland Now, will be at the Hawk's Well Theatre from tomorrow.
The millennium family day on June 6th, which coincides with the Sligo Races, includes an all-day children's programme, a street pageant at 6.30 p.m., an open-air concert featuring Tartan Amoebas and Natalie MacMaster and, at 11 p.m., a fireworks display. All events are free, thanks to funding from the National Millennium Committee and the Department of Tourism, Sport and Recreation.
The theme of the pageant is cultures of the world and more than 300 schoolchildren will join Taru Street Productions, with different schools representing different cultures. Other groups taking part are Beyond Borders from Co Donegal, the Sambaeire percussion group from Drumshanbo in Co Leitrim and Belfast Circus.
The ESB millennium drum, the largest in the world with a 15-ft diameter, which was first seen at the St Patrick's Day parade in Dublin this year, will be in the pageant. It will be featured in a dramatic representation of the ending of one millennium and the starting of the next.
A giant Tower of Babel, constructed of waste timber from the Model Arts Centre, will be ritually destroyed. A spectacular display of street theatre is promised.
The festival opens tonight with Salsa Celtica, who fuse Celtic and Latin sounds, at 9 p.m. in the Hawk's Well Theatre. French group Lo'Jo play the Southern Hotel at 11 p.m. and Freddie White will be at the Harp Tavern from 9.30 p.m.
The festival can be contacted by email at artsfestival@tinet.ie or phone 071 69802. Website http://homepage.tinet.ie/-arts.